UPDATE (12:40) // The Press Officer of the General Prosecutor’s Offic, Maria Vieru, confirmed for Deschide.MD that Andrei Pantea was arrested for the excess of duties – the transfer of the Karamalak case in the Russian Federation, when he was the Temporary General Prosecutor. The quoted source also told us that Pantea was arrested at home, without resistance. The Anti-corruption prosecutors conducted searches at his residence and will not communicate if something was found. In these moments, Pantea is in the CNA's insulator.

The former Prime Deputy Prosecutor - Andrei Pantea, who executed as well the function of the temporary General Prosecutor of the Republic of Moldova, was arrested by the Anti-corruption prosecutors, are communicating the sources of Deschide.MD.

At the end of June, in a Deschide.MD investigation, we announced about the fact that Andrei Pantea would have helped the investigation committee of the Russian Federation to close the file of the thief in law, Gregory Karamalak, alias "Bulgaru". The Criminal prosecution was discontinued in December 2015 - a year and a half away from the transfer of his case to the Moscow, proceedings conducted under the signature of Andrei Pantea.

“There were interests. Mr. Pantea being the Prime Deputy Prosecutor, knew very good about the SCJ decision, which was annulling the judge completion of the Rascani, Genadie Morozan, and respectively, had no right to transfer the file to the Russian Federation. From what I know, he did abuse of service and signed the transfer decision when the General Prosecutor Zubco was not in the country. There were rumors that for this transfer were proposed large amounts of money: between 500 000 and 1.5 million dollars, and if there are rumors of this kind, the truth usually is about in the middle” declared to us then the former prosecutor of Chisinau, Ivan Diacov in a comment made to Deschide.MD.

In turn, Pantea refused to comment on rumors about the amounts which, some say, he would be charged, instead he wanted to explain his decision to transfer the case to the Russian authorities from the legal point of view:

"I will not comment the statements of Mr. Diacov beause I do not want to give any weight to this man, with all due respect that I have towards his career .... All legal procedures were followed, and over the transfer worked an institutional group, therefore, until it came under my signature, the procedure has been prepared by many others. More than that, I returned the file several times because they were not complied with all the requirements for transfer ", told us in detail Andrei Pantea.

Asked it is true that the transfer was done when Procuorul General was not in the country, Pantea told us: "It does not matter whether it was or was not. He not initiated this process because the responsibilities were divided."

A strange fact is that at the end of the discussion, the former Prime Deputy Prosecutor rhetorically asked us on an almost annoyed note: “But who is afraid of this Caramalac. Why do you make him a national hero by paying him so much attention? I think that this is a thing of the past.”

Details and documents at this topic you can find in the following article: EXCLUSIV / Ruşii i-au clasat dosarul lui Caramalac. Pântea i-a ajutat?

We mention that Andrei Pantea resigned from his position after the Supreme Council of Prosecutors accepted at September 21, 2015 the request for dismissal. The former prosecutor did not indicate in the application the reason for his leaving.

Gregory Caramalac was charged on the fact that since the mid 90's of last century, the group under his leadership committed a series of murders and robberies, kidnapping, extortion and banditry. In 2008 he obtained Russian citizenship, although in 1998 he was Internationally wanted.

Currently, Caramalac appears in friendly pictures with the leader of "Our party", Renato Usatai, and according to unconfirmed reports he would be one who would finance multiple pro-Russian actions in our country.